


Broken Foundation

by BunheadKitKat19



Series: thoschei one-shots [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I told myself that I need to get better at writing for school, Implied Torture, M/F relationship my ass, Other, Post-Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall, Thoschei, also its not academy era in the slightest, and my brain went and did this instead, and their relationship will always be queer, anyways idk this kinda just happened, but those names are important here so I couldn't not tag them, implied major character death, neither of them even have a human gender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22296964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunheadKitKat19/pseuds/BunheadKitKat19
Summary: “Tell me this isn’t real,” she pleaded. He tried to look away, he truly did.“Please.” The helpless and broken words barely escaped her lips. He shuddered at her brokenness. Gone was the spirit fortified by kindness. In its place was the ruins of a wanderer who could not find their guiding stars.“I am... so sorry. I truly am.”
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: thoschei one-shots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1641064
Comments: 6
Kudos: 100





	Broken Foundation

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone this is my first fic in a while, first completed fic in ages (maybe ever), and first fic I've ever posted. Inspiration just struck, and seventy-two hours or so later here we are. 
> 
> I have not seen much of Classic Who, but I tried to remain as cannon-compliant as possible (thank you Tardis.fandom.com).

The Doctor took a deep breath. Head still spinning, she tried to re-orient herself in this strange universe. The entire world looked the same, wherever she went. A flash of white light darted in front of her. She shivered, unable to fight her new oldest memories.

_A child skipping through a red meadow donned in regal robes. They hummed an eerily homey melody..._

The racing of her hearts snapped the Doctor back into reality. The crowded emptiness of the dark structures that towered around her only compounded the Doctor’s burning feelings of loss and hopelessness. But a part of her still had hope for something. This was not the end. She had to keep going.

Some time passed. Maybe an eternity, or no time at all. For once, the Timelord could not tell. Another step, she kept telling herself. Just keep going, it’s only a matter of time. With each step, though, the Doctor felt weaker and weaker. She could not keep up for much longer. Eventually, her legs gave out, and she collapsed onto one of the structures she hadn’t dared to touch before. Had she been alright, she would have recoiled at the slimy yet sharp scaly substance that barely supported her weight.

“Oh no, no, no, no… why is this happening?” She felt dizzier than ever before. “HELP!!!” She cried, desperate for someone like her to show up. Not that it would happen, but maybe, if she was very lucky, the very thing she was looking for would find her. “Help, please…” she trailed off as the frail frame of her body slumped to the ground.

_The child stopped at the entrance to the Citadel. They extended their arm forward as to push the door open, but it went straight through. The child stepped forward, leaving no trace of their existence, not even on the rust-colored sands they had just skipped through. The child slipped through the cracks of the bustling city. As they went deeper into the heart of the capital, the emptier the rooms became. They found themself in a looming chamber, technology that brought forth an entire race. A Gallifreyan entered but took no notice of the child. The two went about their business, one not acknowledging the other, the other not even realizing that they were not alone._

The Doctor was being dragged back by the arms. She tried to open her eyes, but all she could see was a blur of the world before the heaviness of her eyelids overpowered her will.

_The child pulled out a package from their robe and released its contents. A scarred essence floated out, dancing in the air until it floated into the nearest loom. Their job there was done. Onto the next._

When the Doctor came to, she appeared to no longer be in that empty universe. She could not make out much, but the world around her was colorful and alive. She appeared to be indoors, in some cabin. Like O’s cabin…

She noticed him working in the shadows. Whatever it was that was keeping him busy did not hold his attention once he heard the Doctor’s rustling.

“Koschei…” she whispered. He froze.

“You came back.” He kept his back to her, out of not wanting to show his weakness and out of fear of seeing her just as weak as him.

“How did we get here?” The Doctor asked, not yet ready to say what she needed to.

“The Kasalvian.” The Doctor raised an eyebrow at that. Last she remembered of them was them trying to invade this universe, not helping its inhabitants.

“You’re confused,” he realized. “See, after you trapped me in that WONderful place… they’re telepathic. They learned the truth, and wanted nothing more to do with this universe. And then you showed up, and they sent us back.” The Doctor tried to stand but felt a sharp pain ripple through her entire body. She keeled over, landing onto a chair that he placed by her while she was still unconscious. Maybe those seventy years were not a waste after all…

“How did you get there?” He asked, half not caring. The two Timelords, though neither of them wanted to even say that word aloud anymore, were dancing around the truth. To speak it would make it too real, and it was ever so easy to pretend as if none of it existed.

“Oh um… I took apart the telepathic circuit of the TARDIS, and took it to the remaining crack in the walls of the universe. It’s destroyed now…” The Doctor trailed off.

“The Doctor without the TARDIS,” he remarked. He could not show how much it meant to him that his friend would give up something so important to her, for him. He had to keep up his front.

“And your pets? What happened this time? You go through them like socks,” he sneered. He did not need to turn around to feel her glare in retaliation. He swallowed hard.

“We both know why you came back. You must remember it now.” He turned to face her, head bowed. She mustered her strength to lift her head, and saw him approach her. When he was right in front of her he stopped, hesitating. He slowly kneeled to the ground, so that they were both level. He grabbed her hands and they looked at each other in the eyes for the first time since they met up on the Eiffel Tower. He saw the fresh pain in her eyes, unlike anything he had ever seen for as long as they had known each other.

“Tell me this isn’t real,” she pleaded. He tried to look away, he truly did.

“Please.” The helpless and broken words barely escaped her lips. He shuddered at her brokenness. Gone was the spirit fortified by kindness. In its place was the ruins of a wanderer who could not find their guiding stars.

“I am... so sorry. I truly am.” Both of their eyes began to well. The Doctor, or whoever she was now, began to shake. Her breathing was heavier and heavier until she was gasping for air. Her head, heavier than ever before, fell forward.

She let out a ghastly cry. That of an animal wounded by its own pack. He let go, giving her space. He had her right where he wanted, yet the satisfaction he anticipated melted away the moment he found her limp body in that other universe. All he felt was the same pain, amplified.

“It’s true,” he choked. “Since the anchoring of the thread.” She looked up. To anyone who did not know, her expression would have been one of apathy. He knew better, though. Her blankness did not come from not caring, but her broken will.

“It’s not surprising, in retrospect,” he began. “How could a regenerating species even exist in a purely rational world? And yet, here we are.” He stood up and stepped back.

“That child, that scarred essence… that’s why we exist?” The man gave a weary chuckle.

“Scarred… that’s one word for it.” He turned away. “I remember the child slashing mine up. Why? Who knows. Hatred, vengeance, fury, amusement. Why do you think we can never feel happy? Not truly, at least. Because there’s always something deep inside that can never be whole. Something, broken.”

“I confronted them,” he went on, “Rassilon, mainly. I forced the truth out of him. It took centuries, but eventually, he broke. It started when he decided to make the universe rational, the anchoring of the thread. We were never taught how it happened, and he let us believe that he did it alone. But that was a lie. He was not alone. With him was a creature from a different plane of existence, taking the form of a child, whose name best translates to Chaos. Rassilon knew that in making the universe purely rational, he would need to give up the power of the Timelords. But he was greedy,” he spat.

His audience of one began to shift in her seat. Wanting to stand but still trying to find any energy she had left.

“Chaos played him, and our pain was the price. They granted him the ability to keep our regenerations, and they would be the one to scour all the universes to provide for this energy within every Gallifreyan. There’s a reason that every other species that tries to emulate our regeneration technology fails. In exchange, Chaos got to play with our essences, breaking us as they please. When the walls of the universe were fortified, Chaos was strung out in the middle, never able to fully exist in a single universe, but part of every single one. They weave through the worlds like a needle through cloth, powerless to do anything else but to honor their agreement with one man and torture the rest of his kind.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, shakily standing up. “I thought you wanted it to be hard for me.” She saw a slight movement in his Adam’s apple, and at that moment she began to understand. Her pain hurt him too.

“You really think that all that time in the vault meant nothing to me? I DIED for you.” She shuddered a weak gasp. “And yet, like everyone else, you chose to assume the worst.” Guilt washed over them both, one for what they had done, the other for what they did not.

“Seeing you, like this…” he continued. “You hurt too much,” he said, shutting his eyes. The Doctor raised a small hand and placed it on his arm. Remorse. As much as it pained her to see her friend like this, it gave the Doctor some much-needed hope.

“I’m sorry too,” she finally admitted. “If I had known better… Oh, but I should have known.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore… You’ve seen Gallifrey,” he muttered, defeated.

“I have,” she whispered. She still wished that she had never gone back, but she did. For so long she had been trying to flee from it all, but there is only so far one can run. She scrunched her face with furrowed eyebrows, and at a different time, he would have laughed at how cute it was. Gears churning in her mind, something nagging at her. Soon, her eyes opened wide in revelation.

“Twice.” She finished firmly. His cheeks became hot red, the muscles in his face contorting and twitching.

“Koschei, I know what you did, even though you won’t tell me. And I know why you won’t tell me. You don’t want to admit it yourself. You didn’t destroy your people, Koschei-”

“STOP CALLING ME THAT!” He flung her arm away. “I am the MASTER. You’ve said it yourself: I am a monster. And apparently, I have been since before my birth. I was always destined to be a monster-”

“And yet you saved them,” she interrupted. “You’re not doomed to be a monster forever. I have been to the end of the universe. I know they are safe, and alive, and… harmless to the rest of the universe. It seems that they cannot escape Galifrey alone, or else they would have dragged me back there. And to the rest of the universe, there’s just us. Koschei and… Theta.” It had been centuries since she used that name for anything, let alone spoke it.

“I was going to burn it all down... Theta… but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even get vengeance on Rassilon. Not properly, anyway.”

Theta chuckled. The sound of her childhood name brought back memories of love and hope.

“I know that too. If it helps, everyone turned on him when I was in Gallifrey in the future.” A slight smile formed in his eyes, enough for Theta to see past the mask he had worn the last time they met.

“So what did you do instead?”

“I destroyed the looming chambers, and took all the energy that was being used for regenerating to send Gallifrey to the end of the universe and prevent any of them from ever leaving the planet. Once they use their current regenerations, it’s all over. Same goes for us too. Chaos created the other Gallifrey to take its place in the bubble. That’s what I burned… Theta, I-”

She reached up to her old friend’s face, emulating the gesture of love and kindness that had been granted to her countless times before. He gasped at this sign of pure affection, something he had gone without for so long, so long without her. They were both standing, face to face. A shared history, suffering, understanding.

“I know.”

He tried to fight the tears, but one small brush of Theta’s fingers on his cheek was all it took to break his walls. Finally, Theta tore down her walls too. Not knowing what else they could do, they embraced each other. They were all the other had at that point. Their entire existence may be built on lies, but their relationship was strong enough to stand alone, even with a broken foundation.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't go into it much in the actual fic, but the anchoring of the thread is really interesting. For anyone who doesn't know, before the anchoring of the thread, the universe was in constant chaos. There were no rules, only infinite potential. Early civilizations began to form, including Gallifreyans (there is debate about whether Timelords and Gallifreyans are synonyms, or whether Timelord is simply a title). Rassilon decided to make the universe rational to allow for the growth of the new civilizations. At the same time, Gallifreyans lost their fertility, and so they created Looms to continue to procreate. This is only a brief summary, so feel free to look it up.


End file.
